Oh dear. Whilst Section 6.1.9 of LTN 1/20 states, "Creating space for cycling may require the reallocation of space within the highway boundary. Wherever possible, this should be achieved by reallocating carriageway space, not reducing the level of service for pedestrians.", here the city council has done the opposite. So this is what faces people cycling along the Dudley Road once they get past Heath Street (and yes, this is part of the development area). People walking and on cycles are expected to share the pavement outside shop doors so that the council can have four lanes of the motor traffic that it loves so much. The bus lane is not 24 hour, and out-of-hours people are allowed to park here. Half a dozen cars, most of which will be people visiting other shops or no shop at all is not trade. It represents a business on the edge of collapse. Yet rather than giving businesses what they need, the council caves and gives them what they ask for. If the council had done the same in New Street, New Street would still be rammed with cars and the shops would not have seen the 25% increase in trade that followed its pedestrianisation. People in cars bring almost no trade. Even if the driver wants to stop and shop, the fundamental lack of space means they probably wont be able to. Studies have shown that a large proportion of motor traffic in an area is caused by drivers driving around looking for somewhere to park. When they do find somewhere, they hold up all the other traffic whilst they shunt into the parking space, adding to the congestion that discourages people from going there in the first place, because it makes the area difficult and unpleasant to visit. Yet there is off-street parking available in the immediate area (in Barford Road, and free customer parking at Lidl), along with on-street parking in side roads. Businesses will scream for more parking, but where? Whose house or business do they want to demolish to make space for what is a very spatially inefficient form of transport? On the other hand pedestrians just walk through the door of any shop that takes their fancy; I've done that myself whilst walking, discovering useful shops that I would have driven straight past. People on bikes do need somewhere to lock up, but that takes up far less space than car parking and there is never any need to cycle round and round an area to find somewhere you can leave your bike. Shop owners in Germany frequently provide bike parking in front of their shops, because they know where their trade really comes from. Birmingham city council has opted here for old-skool tried-and-failed rubbish.
